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Christ Church, Oxford
October 13, 1875
My Dear Gertrude:
I never give birthday presents, but you see I do sometimes write a birthday letter; so, as I’ve just arrived here, I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday tomorrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don’t mind—but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn’t like that, would you? You would say “Boo! hoo! Here’s Mr. Dodgson’s drunk all my tea, and I haven’t any left!” So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she’ll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying “Boo! hoo! Here’s Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven’t got any left!” And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund,when he is sent for to see you! “My dear Madam, I’m very sorry to say your little girl has got no health at all! I never saw such a thing in my life!”“Oh, I can easily explain it!” your mother will say. “You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!” “Well, Mrs. Chataway,” he will say, “the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for her to drink his health.”
And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you’ll like mine!Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense!
Your loving friend,
LEWIS CARROLL
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), better known by his pen name, “Lewis Carroll,” was an English author. He was the son of a clergyman. For four years he attended the famous school at Rugby, after which he entered college at Oxford. He became an excellent scholar and mathematician and was appointed a lecturer on mathematics at Oxford University, a position that he held for many years. His keen sympathy with the imagination of children and their sense of fun led him to tell of the adventures of Alice, in a book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.This book made Lewis Carroll’s name famous. His delightful humor is well illustrated in his letter of “Birthday Greetings” to Gertrude Chataway.
Answer the following questions.
1) What is usually meant by “drink your health”?
2) How does the author make “drink your health” funny in this letter?
3) What remedy does the author suggest the doctor will prescribe for Gertrude?
4) What does the author call this humour?
5) “Drink your health” is funny if taken literally. What other phrases would be funny if they were taken literally?